The Reception of Milton’s Satan in C. S. Lewis’s Perelandra

Abstract

John Milton’s reputation and reception reached a critical juncture in the 20th century, as a range of English scholars and poets debated the nature and importance of Paradise Lost. Central to this debate was Milton’s representation of Satan, which, due to the vivacity and agency with which Milton invests the chief antagonist, led Romantic critics to reject the epic on the grounds that Milton’s corrupt morality—his Pride, chiefly—is the source of Satan’s sympathetic depiction. Modern critics, such as F. R. Leavis, T. S. Eliot, A. J. Waldock, and E. M. Tillyard, extended this critique to Milton’s language, arguing that Milton failed in his stated purpose (to justify the ways of God to man in judging Adam and Eve at the Fall) because Adam and Eve are too attractive to condemn, the devil is more appealing than God, and God himself is plunged into strange contradictions and untenable sophistries. C. S. Lewis was one of many voices who sought to defend Milton, both in critical essay, and, especially, through his own depiction of the Fall in Perelandra, a science fiction novel. Lewis’s portrayal of Satan recuperates a reading of Paradise Lost that emphasizes the essential being and deceptive nature of the devil. For Lewis, such truths were self-evident to Milton’s Renaissance readers. In Perelandra, Lewis dwells on the representation of epic absurdity, diabolical personality, and the significance of Eve’s temptation, amplifying for his modern audience the central stakes of Paradise Lost while simultaneously debunking modern misconceptions of the purpose and effect of Milton’s epic.